


The Road Ahead

by A_space_gay



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Fix It Fic, I try to rationalise the finale but just make dean sad, M/M, Post-Finale, if dean reacted properly to finding out cas was alive, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:14:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29189139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_space_gay/pseuds/A_space_gay
Summary: What if rather than nodding and then driving away for years, the news that Castiel was alive hit him like a baseball bat to the skull. What if Dean felt like the soul that had been drained out of him had returned. And what if he was really angry it hadn't happened sooner.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 34





	The Road Ahead

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in four hours across three days to get myself back into writing. This is my first supernatural work so I tried to keep it as in character as possible, ignore the atrocious use of commas.

Dean looked absentmindedly around him at the peculiar place he had found himself, Bobby hadn’t been lying when he said that Jack had fixed it, it almost felt like home; it had definitely felt like home when he heard that the one thing missing from his life of freedom had a hand in its creation. The news that Cas was alive had hit him like a ton of bricks ten times over, all the blame and fear and guilt rose in his throat again as it always did, but in the first few seconds, he had barely noticed as the sweet feeling of primal happiness flooded his veins. Cas was okay, Cas wasn’t suffering, Cas wasn’t in an eternal sleep, Cas was here in person and in every dust particle brushing over his feet, in every soft gust of wind that disturbed them. 

Bobby had smiled when he saw Dean’s reaction as though he had intentionally saved the knowledge to the end of his welcome to heaven speech. It worked, as Dean found himself thankful that he had taken his leave afterwards.

Now he was standing in the wood-panelled, dimly lit main room of the house created just for him with all of the negative emotions finally breaking through the initial elation to spike in his crinkled eyes. 

“Cas you son of a bitch,” he choked to thin air, hoping to god that prayer still worked to new and improved angels, “it’s been months how… how could you not tell me you were okay after-” could he even let himself say it, think it? After all this time not even letting Sam know what had really happened, still pushing down his little secrets. 

“You should have told me Cas I, I needed you down there.”

The unmistakable flutter of angel wings sounded behind him, and funnily enough, he was almost too scared to turn around in case it wasn’t real. “Hello, Dean,” he crowed after a seconds silence, his voice sending shockwaves into Dean’s heart that propelled him around to face the angel.

Cas looked different now, he looked younger, lighter almost, as though the weight of the past years had been lifted off his shoulders and he almost expected him to spark the lights or misunderstand a pop culture reference. Instead, he just looked bashfully with the eyes of the Castiel Dean had last seen so very long ago; not quite a smile.

“You’re alive…”  
“Dean I-”  
“You’ve been here this whole time,” he choked out, “this whole time and you couldn’t even bring yourself to swing by and let me know?!”

“Dean-”

“You left me there thinking you were dean, worse than dead! Do you know how that felt?!”

“Dean,” he finally gets through, “I thought you wouldn’t want to see me, I thought I was doing the right thing, saving you any more pain.”

Dean scoffed in reply, a reply that dripped over his misplaced anger, “well, you thought wrong Cas!”

His words hung in the air thickening the untold tensions that he didn’t really want at all, Dean remaining stony-faced until it was almost too much. Then he suddenly found himself flung into the angel's arms, gripping him tightly as though he was the only thing in the world that was real, that could hold the weight of him. He was sure it had to be hurting him but the strong arms delicately holding him back suggested otherwise. 

“It was my fault,” the gentle sniffs between his sentences were badly disguised as he allowed himself to gently mewl into Cas’ shoulder, “I’m so sorry Cas, it was my fault.”

Slowly, and without urgency Cas pushed him away, holding him almost at arm's length so he could look him in the eyes, but at the same time as though he thought he might break him if he held him close. “Dean, you have to understand that it wasn’t you, I made that deal, I realised… I realised my true happiness required nothing more from you, nothing. I made my own decisions for the most worthy cause,” his eyes grew three sizes as his head cocked, “it was my time. It wasn’t yours.”

Dean nodded but he couldn’t quite believe him, how could something so personal not be his fault, things related to… that were always his fault. Nevertheless, he allowed the angel's touch on his shoulder which was finally allowed to be still and without fear of danger.

“I made this place so you could be happy, there’s a bar around the corner, I even convinced Jack to let me design a new ‘dean cave’, although I’m not sure it’s quite right yet I was hoping I’d have more time-” he faltered.

“Yeah,” Dean shrugged Cas off him as he came back to himself, “it just wasn’t the same without you, you deserved to experience that freedom there on Earth,” with me, he finished in his head despite knowing he could say it if he wanted. Especially at the news that Cas had once again made everything so painfully perfect that if it hadn’t been for the ache in his heart he would have jumped like a child on Christmas and run to explore everything he had and all that he had ever wanted.  
“What do you mean? I wasn’t a part of your plan Dean I came to accept that, you didn’t need me. Not like you needed Sam or freedom or your simple pleasures.”

Did he really not understand? Dean couldn’t believe that after all this time the angel had spent discovering the intricacies of humanity, he still couldn’t see through his facade. He had seen past Dean’s utter conviction that he was a tool to be manipulated, he had looked at Dean with his father’s car, father’s music, father’s scars, anger and fear and had seen Dean, not John, not the tool of his vendetta, he saw Dean right to his bare soul. If he could see that far through layers that he wasn’t even aware he had then how could it be possible for him to not see that Dean owed him everything.  
“I thought you understood humanity now, Cas.” he huffed, scuffing his boots on the floor, “man I thought you said you knew me how could you not know that I needed you there.”

Rather than looking bashful Cas simply smiled, a very human smile that looked out of place on his fresh unburdened face, “I was scared, Dean, scared that you wouldn’t want me there.”

A small chuckle escaped his lips almost in disbelief.

“I was- well, I wasn’t expecting to have to experience the consequences of my actions beyond saving you.”

Dean noticed two things in the abashed silence that followed.  
Firstly, the room was the perfect temperature; the design of the world he lived in was almost too perfect to comprehend.  
Secondly, he was suddenly feeling nothing but anger towards his dad for the first time in a very long lonely time.  
The third thing which he chose not to notice was that his eyes were pricking angrily with tears again.

“Cas, there's things I'm not supposed to do. Being a hunter, being my dad’s son, some things can’t make me happy. I’ve known that my whole life, fuck I’ve tried to teach myself different, but it’s in me.”  
Beat.  
“I can’t do it Cas, I can’t make you happy, I can’t have that happiness, not like you do.” He felt himself getting angry, his hand balling into a fist as he held all the anger that the angel was so sure didn’t define him inside his chest. “I tried goddamn it, I tried and I wasn’t allowed, that’s why I’m here.”

He said it before he realised what it actually meant, that’s why he was here. Dean had always known he was going to die hunting, he had always thought that was how he had to go out because the world was cruel and he wasn’t allowed a so-called normal life. But that had changed, at least he thought that had changed, he’d made friends, found a home, found love and almost dared himself to want it, and most of all he’d found the son of a bitch that put him on this path and he’d left him to rot. So when it was all over surely that didn’t have to be his path anymore, he’d dared himself to think. But maybe something hadn’t been quite right, maybe his home had felt too full of death and his friends had all succumbed to the fate he had been awaiting, maybe the love he’d found had dared to challenge the silence and then taken everything away all at once. Maybe he was here because even though he could determine his destiny he couldn’t quite accept that all of the things drummed into him since age 4 weren’t true, Dean almost accepted that he deserved happiness and peace but those that made him believe it never stuck around for too long. 

There it was again, almost immediately the anger was surging through him, at everyone, at himself, at his father who couldn’t bring himself to just raise a kid-  
No, this wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right to still be antagonising himself over the same things year after year, not now he was dead and Cas was alive and here stood in front of him, looking with his concerned head tilt and horrifically baby blue eyes peering right through to his soul. 

“Dean,” he ventured after what seemed like a suitable amount of time, “this is meant to be your heaven, the happiest place I could create for you, if I’m the problem I can leave, I won’t want anything from you, all you have to do is ask.”

Just to watch Dean prosper, throw his head back in laughter and rest peacefully, that would be enough; he had been an observer of humanity for thousands of years and if whatever weighed on Dean’s chest was worsened by his presence, well that was reason enough to return to that position. 

Now it was Dean’s turn to be confused, “what, no? Cas what are you talking about man I want you here… I’ll be happier if you’re here.”

“Well,” Cas shuffled and glanced at his feet, which Dean couldn’t help but smile at, “I’m glad.”

“Look Cas, I’m not angry at you, not really. There’s this... this thing,” he gestured vaguely to his chest and the feeling that had weighed on him since the first time his dad yelled at him for crying, “and it’s been more than 40 years and I can’t shift it. No one’s ever spoken to me like you did Cas I mean- you saw it and man- I didn’t even know if it was really even there; I can’t tell you what that means to me, I can’t get the words out. But when you went, I thought that’s it, that’s my fault, even under all this ‘stuff’ I still hurt people because that’s what I do.”

“Stop-”

“I’m not done. I’m angry because I needed you, and I’m angry at me because I blamed myself, I’m just still so angry Cas because of all of it and I know you think I’m more than that, hell I almost did but it’s still there. I want to be happy here, I want to let it go, finally, and I still don’t know how to do that, but I know I need you here and not out there doing whatever angels do now, you hear me?”

He wasn’t sure if he was still tearing up or if he was smiling, maybe both.  
“I need you.”

Cas’ hair was sticking up at odd angles, his tie loose, his trench coat hanging over him making him look twice the size on the smaller frame that Dean still wasn’t used to. Cas stood in front of him looking just as he had always done and the softness in his eyes was achingly familiar.

And to Cas, despite his age, Dean looked younger than he had in years and he filled in everything perfectly like all the puzzle pieces of him were finally fitting together. Foolishly, he thought back to the Dean he had first met, the man who didn’t feel as though he deserved to be saved, and here he was a decade later asking him how he could be. He was filled with love and allowed it to coarse through him just as he had all those months ago; it hadn’t been goodbye then and it wasn’t now, it was the beginning and Cas felt himself daring to dream.

Dean was leaning into the angel’s touch as he held the side of his face and gently leant their foreheads together, there was no resistance. And Cas saw everything he had never even dreamed he would see, he saw love, love that caused Dean pain, love that caused him the most childlike Joy. He felt need without direction, he felt guilt and lust and simple happiness. Cas felt everything that Dean felt when he heard his name. 

He had lived for millennia, he had seen the rise and fall of empires and men who would be Gods. Then he had dared to question, he had dared to learn, to love and to find all of humanity inside one man who could never be replaced. Finally, he was learning to be loved.

“Oh.”

The look in his eyes was so filled with emotion that Dean felt it too, or maybe it was some weird effect of the afterlife that he was still getting used to. Either way, Cas knew even if he couldn’t say the words, even if he didn’t even know what he would say if he could. 

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, not moving from the equilibrium they were melded into, if he didn’t move he didn’t have to look, nothing had to change.  
“It was me, Dean, all me.”

Then Dean did something he never even allowed himself to think he could do, that him even five years ago would have laughed at out loud despite the yearning that was inside him even then, he kissed him. Just lightly brushing over his lips in case he might break, barely allowing himself to feel it but even then it hit him like a truck. If he just kept his eyes closed forever then things might be okay, and now he really had forever. 

How could he feel so comforted by such a simple action? This, whatever it was, had only followed him in dark places.

In a dimly lit hotel room with his dad’s fists.  
In his moment of grey morality and faith in monsters that he had spent his life killing.  
In a dark bar with black eyes and an amoral English accent.  
But now, in a warm room, beams of dusty light and only a feeling of warmth spreading through him from any point of contact they shared.

If this feeling was so bad then how could it be here in the place that was built for his eternal happiness. He doesn't know how, but it is.

With that in mind, he allowed himself to be set free just for a second, to push harder against Cas and feel the tentative movement back, where their lips locked like they were handcrafted to fit perfectly together. 

He pulled away for just a second, hands still holding their heads mere millimetres away from each other, “Cas this is heaven, you can get what you want,” he leant back in, kissing him to emphasise the point, “the one thing you want.”

After what could have been seconds, or years, they stood in the same position that they had been in for the past tumultuous ten minutes, pressed against each other. Cas thought he knew what it would be like, he had kissed before as human and angel, but nothing could have prepared him for the feeling of a kiss punctuated by years of longing and devotion. 

Dean pushed every thought that tried to make itself known out of his mind, he pushed away everything that wasn’t this house, this angel, this car and the never-ending stretch of road ahead of him. 

“You should have told me you were alive.”

“I know.”


End file.
